Furniture for indoor and/or outdoor use, such as casual furniture, may comprise a metal frame with a seat and/or back formed from straps that are attached or otherwise secured to the metal frame.
Frames for such chairs may be made of tubular material such as tubular metal, or may be formed of material such as metal with slots in the frames into which straps may be secured.
Straps for such furniture may be made of vinyl or other materials.
There have been various ways for attaching straps to such frames. Some ways to attach straps to metal frames are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,114,578 (E. F. Hamilton; “Hamilton”) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,445,436 (Glen D. Kemnitz; “Kemnitz”). FIG. 8 of Kemnitz depicts a Kemnitz tabbed end (element number 48 of FIG. 8 of Kemnitz) of a strap (element number 16 of FIG. 8 of Kemnitz) that could be inserted through a slot (element number 80 of FIG. 8 of Kemnitz) of a frame such that the tab (element number 52 of FIG. 8 of Kemnitz) catches and abuts itself against an inner wall (element number 82 of FIG. 8 of Kemnitz) of the chair frame to anchor the end of the strap in the frame. Kemnitz discloses that the strap would then be stretched and wrapped around the frame so that the opposing end of the strap could be similarly fastened to the opposing side of the Kemnitz frame.
FIG. 11 of Kemnitz depicts one of various “external” ways of securing an end of a strap to a frame. As depicted in FIG. 11 of Kemnitz, a fastener, such as a canoe clip (element number 184 of FIG. 11 of Kemnitz), a screw, a Christmas tree clip, or similar fastener, may be used to pierce an end of a strap (element number 172 of FIG. 11 of Kemnitz) and the tubular frame (element number 80′ of FIG. 11 of Kemnitz) to which the strap is to be attached. Similar to the above-described Kemnitz tabbed-end method of securing a strap to a frame, FIG. 11 of Kemnitz shows a Kemnitz strap (element number 16′ of FIG. 11 of Kemnitz) being wrapped around the tubular frame. As will be understood by someone with ordinary skill in the art, the wrapping of a strap may involve heating the strap to form a close conformance of the strap to the frame and to allow stretching of the strap so that the opposing end can be similarly anchored; cooling of the strap results in the strap condensing in form thereby forming a close fit to the frame.
A way of securing straps to wooden frames has been provided by a manufacturer known as “PIRELLI”—PIRELLI has provided rubber webbing straps and webbing “clips”, an exemplary illustration of which is depicted in FIGS. 1-3 hereto. As depicted in FIG. 1 hereto, an exemplary PIRELLI clip 190 comprises a piece of metal with “spurs” or “barbs” 192 that, when the clip is compressed so that one side meets the opposing side, the “spurs” or “barbs” fit into small holes 191 or indentations in the opposing side. As will be understood by someone with ordinary skill in the art, a PIRELLI clip could be fit and compressed over an end 194 of a strap 193, such as a rubber strap, such as illustratively depicted in FIG. 2, so that the PIRELLI clip “spurs” would pierce or anchor the material 195 in the opposing small holes 191 of the clip 190; the end of the PIRELLI clip 190 could then be inserted into a wooden frame slot 196 as depicted in FIG. 3; the opposing end of a rubber strap could be similarly capped with a PIRELLI clip and inserted in a wooden frame slot on an opposing frame element (not shown).
As will be understood by someone with ordinary skill in the art, PIRELLI clips have been used with wooden furniture and with rubber straps. As will be understood by someone with ordinary skill in the art, because of the thickness of vinyl straps, PIRELLI clips would not tend to pierce or anchor vinyl material in opposing PIRELLI holes and would therefore not provide a secure anchor. Further, as depicted in FIGS. 1-3 hereto, the shape of PIRELLI clips would not tend to prevent extraction of a PIRELLI-clipped end of a strap from a channel in a tubular metal frame such as illustratively depicted in, for example, FIG. 5B-C, 6A-D, 13, 14A-B, or 15-18 hereto.
An alternative way of providing strapping for chairs is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,769,500 (Richard Holbrook; “Holbrook”). Holbrook discloses segments with injection-molded portions on each end of the segment that fit into channels formed in opposing rails of a metal frame. As will be understood by someone with ordinary skill in the art, equipment for injection-molding segments such as disclosed in Holbrook are very expensive, some costing in the range of $100,000. Further, as will be understood by someone with ordinary skill in the art, due to costs involved in injection-molding processes, orders for injection-molded segments as disclosed by Holbrook may involve molding thousands of segments of a single configuration, size and color; small orders or individual orders for a single segment would not be commercially practical. Further, as will be understood by someone with ordinary skill in the art, injection-molded Holbrook segments would be relatively hard and would not easily mold around a frame in which rail channels are disposed in exterior sides of rails or in the back of rails. Rather, FIGS. 2 and 3 of Holbrook disclose Holbrook segments fitting into a “top” or “front” channel of a metal frame; such applications of Holbrook segments do not involve bending a Holbrook segment around a frame rail such as is depicted in, for example, FIGS. 14A-B, 15 and 16 hereto.
As an alternative to chairs with strapping, casual furniture may comprise a “sling” that forms a back and a seat comprising a singular “sling” member. For example, as depicted in FIG. 4 hereto, a singular “sling” member 402 is secured to a metal frame to form a chair back and seat. Such “sling” chairs may comprise a metal frame with opposing members, e.g., frame side rails 401a and 401b wherein each opposing member (each frame side rail) comprises a channel (see element number 406, FIGS. 5B and 5C) that traverses the length of the member (e.g., elements 401a and 401b). An exemplary “sling” may comprise a single piece of material 402, such as vinyl mesh material; each side 404 of the single piece of material 402 may be wrapped around a corresponding cord member 403 (sometimes referred to as a “keeper rod”) as depicted in FIG. 5A; stitching 419 may be used to fasten the material 402 around the cord (“keeper rod”); each cord-wrapped side is inserted through a corresponding channel 406 in the corresponding frame member 401a/401b as depicted, e.g., in FIG. 5C.
Sling chairs and sling members may be very expensive. In commercial environments such as large hotels, when a sling member of such chairs is damaged, it may be very expensive to replace the sling member, and even more costly to replace the entire sling chair. Further, as will be understood by someone with ordinary skill in the art, because a “sling” is a single member, insertion of a new “sling” into a sling frame is resource intensive and requires knowledge and skill in order to properly fit a new sling into a sling frame. As will be understood by someone with ordinary skill in the art, sling chair frames may comprise various rail and rail channel configurations. Top plan views of various exemplary sling chair frame and frame rail configurations are depicted in FIGS. 6A through 6D. FIGS. 6A through 6D depict exemplary sling element (602) with exemplary sling chair arms (610) and sling chair seat edge (611) in relation to the various sling chair rail (600, 600′, 600″, 600′″)/channel (603, 603′, 603″, 603′″) configurations. As depicted, sling chair frames may comprise frame rail channels along the chair's front (chair rail channel 603 in front of chair rail 600 as depicted in FIG. 6A), in the exterior sides of the chair rails (chair rail channel 603′ in exterior side of chair rail 600′ as depicted in FIG. 6B), in the rear of the chair rails (chair rail channel 603″ in rear of chair rail 600″ as depicted in FIG. 6C), in the interior sides of the chair rails (chair rail channel 603′″ in interior side of chair rail 600′″ as depicted in FIG. 6D), or in some offset variation.
As will be understood by someone with ordinary skill in the art, exemplary embodiments of the above-mentioned Holbrook segment could be used to replace a sling member if the corresponding sling frame happened to have top/front channels as depicted in FIG. 6A. However, as will be understood by someone with ordinary skill in the art, because of their stiffness, Holbrook segments would not be useable with metal frames comprising rail channels in the frame's outer sides (as depicted in FIG. 6B), in the rear of the frame (as depicted in FIG. 6C), or in the inner sides of the frame (as depicted in FIG. 6D). Further, for the reasons mentioned previously above, using Holbrook segments involve expensive injection molding processes and would not be commercially feasible for use to replace a sling element for an individual chair.
A way is needed to inexpensively provide web-strapping for furniture.
A way is needed to inexpensively convert or retrofit sling furniture to strapped furniture.